Catholic Tech Talk

I’m sure you’ve all heard Bob Dufford’s hymn, “Be Not Afraid”  This should be our theme song for church leaders looking to enter that Digital Continent of technology and social media that is the Internet.  The church’s key challenge within moving to this Digital Continent is not a technology gap, but rather fear and not [...]

Every time at this time of year I have parents coming at me, late in registering their children for the Sacramental program of First Confession and First Communion. After phone calls and sifting through emails, I needed a break. I ended up watching the highly anticipated Facebook Announcement event via Livestream. It was not much [...]

One of my favorite Catholic rituals is the candle lighting at the Easter Vigil.  A few years ago I witnessed this event in a somewhat large parish from a balcony.  The whole worship space was pitch black.  In comes the newly lit Pascal Candle down the main aisle.  Candles of those in the pews on [...]

I truly have become a big fan of social networks such as Facebook and Google+ for parishes.  These systems allow for our faith communities to become connected and a part of everyday lives like never before.  One of the things I love about them is event sharing and keeping photos of events for everyone to [...]

For years backups have always been a challenge.  For anyone else who has lost a hard drive or had a computer crash you know the importance of backing up your files and data.  The solution has often been a local external hard drive connected to the computer and or a local network.  This is ok [...]

It’s been about 9 months since Google+ has launched, and many of us have gotten a good idea of what it’s all about and how it can best  be used.   The biggest misconception I’ve found is the tendency to try and understand the service through a simple “apples to apples” comparison with Facebook.  The [...]

You’ve probably heard about the potential benefits for your parish.  You’ve read about it here.  You’ve heard me say it.  Even some Bishops are tweeting.  The Facebook thing looks great.  Google+ looks interesting.  So you and the Pastor decide to give it a go.  You set up all the accounts, do your customization, you tweet, you [...]

The new Facebook Timeline for Pages has a lot of great benefits for a much richer visitor experience.  One the things I like with the change especially is the more prominent “tabs” display at the top and some really good apps that have been coming out.  For example, as I was recently ramping up our [...]

The other day a friend of mine posted a link to an article where a Pinterest user had come to some point where she felt uncomfortable with using the service and violating copyrights.  The writer was a not only a photographer, but a lawyer.  After reading the article, my friend (who has been an artist [...]

So you’ve taken the time to set up your parish Facebook Page.  You’ve got some “likes” and are posting away.  It’s been fun and exciting, and now you might be wondering what the “pay offs” are and how to actually gauge the performance.  I was thinking this myself the other night.  I’ve been very pleased with [...]

It’s nice to see so many parishes embracing social media and establishing accounts on services like Twitter and building Facebook Pages.  As I look at various parish websites that have staff email addresses posted I have noticed that many are obviously personal addresses (i.e. @Yahoo.com, @Live.com, etc.) I wonder how many parishes have a technology, [...]

Ever since I was a kid I have loved music.  I remember spending hours sifting through and listening to 45′s (yes, I’m that old).  Later on, like many people, I amassed the large number albums, then cassettes, and then CD’s.  There was always a few problems I ran into with these: Storage Finding the music [...]

The past two weekends my wife and I traveled to visit family.  I’m a fan of traveling, but I’ve never been a fan of packing.  In addition to clothes and toiletries, now we have to be concerned with access to business stuff plus you want stuff to do.  So here’s what we took in addition to our [...]

The Parish Website is becoming more and more common.  Most parishioners think the parish needs one, and most Pastors want one.  I’m a firm believer that every parish should have a website.  It’s my firm belief that the parish website’s purpose is to serve as a community hub and 24/7 extension of your parish office. [...]

So Google+ Pages went live this past week.  Someone in your parish office or a parishioner might even suggested that your parish set one up.  Then the thought comes to your mind, “Well, we have that Facebook page they told us we should get; why do we need another one somewhere else?”  Good question, and [...]

As most know, Google+ launched a while ago and one thing I have particularly loved about it is the strong Catholic user presence on the service.  Up until yesterday the service lacked the ability for organizations and brands to have their own “page” like Facebook Pages.  So the announcement yesterday was very welcome news.  I [...]

Facebook pages can have great uses for our parishes, and any Facebook user has probably ‘Liked’ a page or two.  As ‘Admins’ of those pages we know we need to get those ‘Likes’ right?  And building the number of those ‘Likes’ is paramount often times for us too.  But have you ever wondered why someone [...]

Editor’s Note:  This blog post originally appeared in Lisa Hendey’s CatholicMom.com site.  It highlight’s a wonderful example of New Media in a Church.  Its a great model for every church to consider!  – Joe   I recently came across a tech blog announcement about the hiring of Thomas Sanjurjo as “Electronic Outreach Director” at Nativity [...]